People's experiences with the weight management service

Healthwatch Wigan and Leigh designed a set of questions about people's experiences of weight management services in conversation, focus groups, and via an online survey.

198 respondents participated in the research, contributing to a total of 577 comments. The majority of the respondents had tried weight loss before and had heard of various council led initiatives to lose weight as well as non-council campaigns. People were mostly happy with the community services and liked the variety and choice, targeted approaches towards men were particularly popular. Most respondents thought the service they had accessed had worked for them.

Suggestions made from the respondents included increasing awareness of these services using posters in GP surgeries, online and in the press, adding incentives and cooking skills to weight management services, using an app to provide online support during the weight loss journey and after goal weight has been achieved to maintain motivation.